Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

the cavalryman, the best mazurka dancer, confessed himself eclipsed. Then they had supper, after which they danced the “Grandfather,” and the ball began to break up. The Count never took his eyes off the widow. It was not pretence when he said he was ready to jump through a hole in the ice for her sake. Whether it was whim, or love, or obstinacy, that evening all his mental powers were concentrated in one desire⁠—to meet and love her. As soon as he noticed that Anna Fyódorovna was taking leave of the hostess, he ran out into the hall, and thence, without his cloak, into the courtyard to the place where the carriages stood.

“Anna Fyódorovna Záytsef’s carriage!” he shouted.

A high, four-seated, closed carriage with lamps burning moved from its place and drew near the porch.

“Stop!” he called to the coachman, and plunging knee-deep into the snow ran to the carriage.

“What do you want?” said the coachman in reply.

“I want to get into the carriage,” answered the Count, opening the door and trying to get in while the carriage was moving. “Stop, you devil, you fool!”

“Váska, stop!” shouted the coachman to the postillion, and pulled up the horses. “What are you getting into other people’s carriages for? This carriage belongs to my mistress, to Anna Fyódorovna, and not to your honour.”

“Well, hold your tongue, blockhead! Here’s a rouble for you; get down and close the door,” said the Count. But as the coachman did not move he lifted the steps himself and, lowering the window, managed somehow to close the door. Inside the carriage, as in all old carriages, especially in those trimmed with yellow galloon, there was a musty smell, something like the smell of rotten and burnt bristles. The Count’s legs were wet with snow up to the knees and felt very cold in his thin boots and riding-breeches; in fact, the winter cold penetrated his whole body. The coachman grumbled on the box, and seemed to be preparing to get down. But the Count neither heard nor felt anything. His face burnt, his heart beat fast. In his nervous tension he seized the yellow window strap and leant out of the side window, and all his being merged into one feeling of expectation.

This feeling of expectation did not long continue. Someone called from the porch, “Záytsef’s carriage!” The coachman shook the reins, the body of the carriage swayed on its high springs, the lighted windows of the house ran one by one past the carriage windows.

“Mind, fellow,” said the Count to the coachman, putting his head out of the window in front, “if you tell the footman I’m here, I’ll thrash you; hold your tongue and you’ll have another ten roubles.”

Hardly had he time to close the window before the body of the carriage shook more violently and the carriage stopped. He pressed close into the corner, held his breath, and even shut his eyes, so terrified was he lest anything should balk his passionate expectation. The door opened, the carriage steps fell noisily one after the other, he heard the rustle of a woman’s dress, a smell of jasmine perfume filled the musty carriage, quick little feet ran up the carriage steps, and Anna Fyódorovna, brushing the Count’s leg with the skirt of her cloak, which had come open, sank silently, but breathing heavily, onto the seat beside him.

Whether she saw him or not no one could tell, not even Anna Fyódorovna herself; but when he took her hand and said, “Well, now I will kiss your hand,”192 she showed very little fear, gave no reply, but let him take her hand and cover her arm much higher than the top of her glove with kisses. The carriage moved on.

“Say something! Art thou angry?” he said.

She pressed silently into her corner, but suddenly something caused her to burst into tears, and of her own accord she let her head fall on his breast.

VI

The newly-elected Captain of Police and his guests, the cavalryman and the other nobles, had long been listening to the gipsies and drinking in the new restaurant when the Count, in a blue cloth cloak lined with bearskin, which had belonged to Anna Fyódorovna’s late husband, joined them.

“Sure, your excellency, we have been impatiently waiting for you!” said a dark, squinting gipsy, showing his white teeth, as he met the Count at the very entrance and rushed to help him off with his cloak. “We have not seen you since the fair at Lebedyáni⁠ ⁠… Styóshka is quite pining away for you.”

Styóshka, a young, graceful little gipsy, with a brick-red tinge on her brown face, and deep, brilliant black eyes shaded by long lashes, also ran out to meet him.

“Ah, little Count! Dearest! Jewel! this is a joy!” she murmured between her teeth, smiling merrily.

Ilúshka himself ran out to greet him, pretending to be very glad. Old women, matrons and maids jumped from their places and surrounded the guest, some claiming him as fellow godfather, some as brother by baptism.193

Toúrbin kissed all the young gipsy girls on the lips; the old women and the men kissed him on the shoulder or the hand. The nobles were also glad to see their visitor, especially as the carouse, having reached its zenith, was beginning to flag. Everyone began to feel satiated. The wine, having lost its exciting effect on the nerves, only oppressed the stomach. Each one had already let off his store of swagger, and they were getting tired of one another; the songs had all been sung, and had got mixed in everyone’s head, leaving a kind of noisy, dissolute impression behind. No matter what strange and dashing thing anyone did, it began to occur to everyone that there was nothing amiable or funny in it. The Captain of Police, who lay in a shocking state on the floor at the feet of an old woman, began kicking his legs and shouting, “Champagne!⁠ ⁠… the Count’s come!⁠ ⁠…